When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked,

This is not my usual New Testament reading. But this story is timeless and one of my favorites. We see in this story that God is not and will not be defined by our human categories. This is why Jesus was so confusing to friends and foes alike. In this podcast I like to focus on topics that help us walk in the way of Jesus. So I have purposely avoided anything overtly political. Jesus was also stubbornly non-political if you follow his life through the gospels. His disciples and others were often encouraging him to be more political, and his enemies were afraid he already was a rising political threat. But thankfully through all these pressures Jesus stuck to his message and his mission and did not succumb to any of these voices.

Today I want to discuss how we can maintain a kingdom focus in a world that desperately demands that we choose to be either “right” or “left”. To begin, the commander of the army of the Lord has come and our orders come from him alone. When we realize this, all other distinctions and labels become meaningless. He is the end of all arguments, God has now entered the world and His word is final. Following Jesus the King of Kings will put us at odds with the world left, right, and center. (Libertarians won’t like it either) When the commander of the army of the Lord shows up (and he has) there is only one side that matters and only one question remaining.

“What would you like me to do?”

The answer to Joshua is a curious one. “Take your shoes off because you are standing on holy ground”. There are several ways to think about the significance of taking your shoes off, but the one I keep coming back to is this: we make shoes to lift us up and to separate and protect us from the ground. When our creator tells us to take off our shoes there is now nothing man made between us and the dust we were created from. It is an act of humility and a recognition of sovereignty before our creator all in one.

So if we are to navigate the current conflicts step one is taking off our shoes and remembering we are but dust without God. Our commander has the only word we need to listen to. And victory will not come by our efforts alone. The right side is not mine or yours it is God’s.

There is a new way

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

The world wants us to go left or right. The world wants to divide us into classes of people, defined in various ways but always, always distinct and separate and at odds. The world cries for unity while dividing into groups and fighting. They shout down those in power while grasping for more power at the same time. They want to be heard, but they want to silence others. They don’t believe in objective truth, but will call you evil if you disagree with them. This is the world we live in, but this is not the kingdom of God.

Jesus is now the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and although this world is still in a state of confusion, governed by the lies of the Devil, the kingdom of God will be fully realized in time. And while we wait He has shown us another way. Let’s call it, “the narrow way” because Jesus called it that one time. It’s called narrow because the other ways are everywhere. Everything in this world wants to drag you down one of the other ways. The way of this world, which is the way to destruction, is wide and easy to find because it’s everywhere and it often looks quite hopeful and nice.

The good news is that the narrow way is not something we have to create, as we see in this passage, God has already created it we just need to walk it. The narrow way is Jesus, the broad way is everything else. This is why Jesus confuses us. We think we can fix our own problems, we can’t. We think we know what to do, we don’t. We think history is on our side, it isn’t. Any plan that deviates from God’s plan is doomed to fail. Jesus is frustrating because he does not join our causes, he demands we join his.

But if we can just take our shoes off and humble ourselves before him we will understand that HE has come. He did not come to join our cause He came to save us from our causes. If we follow Him the world will refuse to trust us, because we are not wholly sold out to one cause or another. The world hates people they can’t categorize and put in a box. Remember, they hated Jesus even though he did nothing but heal, feed, teach, and restore. But people wanted him to join their cause and fight their battles, or if they were in power they were afraid he was going to mess up the status quo. Either way they wanted Jesus to be either for or against them, because that the world can understand. But today just like in Joshua’s time Jesus says no, I am not with your team or the other guys, I am the commander of the army of the Lord - and I have come.

Jesus has come and He is the King of Kings, he is the commander. He did not come to join our causes he came to invite us to join his cause.

This week we will all continue to be bombarded with voices trying to convince us of a particular cause. They will manipulate and intimidate, they will play to our emotions and demonize all those that disagree. What will we do? Will we pray that Jesus joins our cause or will we pray to understand the orders of our commander in this fallen and evil world? We will walk and talk like those who have been set free to serve in love? Or will we take a side and put our faith in our side? Will we follow our commander Jesus in laying down our lives for the benefit of others? Or follow our misguided desires and fight with each other.

We live in an age where it is hard to find a moments peace so let’s take our shoes off, so to speak, and listen to our commander. There is a war to fight but it is not against people, it is against evil. This week let’s fight as our commander fought, let’s do whatever it takes to help people and set them free from the evil that wants to destroy us all.

Have a great week!